Zack Hample has snagged 7,806 baseballs at 51 different major league stadiums since 1990. Find out how and see what else he's been up to.

4/30/11 at Minute Maid Park

It was a Saturday. It was Hunter Pence Bobblehead Day. And Minute Maid Park was packed for batting practice.

I started off in right field…

…and it sucked. There simply wasn’t room to run, and in case it’s not obvious, my body language in the following photo indicates how I felt about it:

That’s me in the tan pants and black shirt; my friend Mike Miles was with me again and had his camera.

At one point, I had an easy opportunity to use the glove trick for this ball in the bullpen…

…but I chickened out because there was a nearby security supervisor patrolling the section.

I abandoned right field and headed for the concourse behind the arches in left field. During the half hour that the Astros were hitting, I managed to snag one ball there. It was a home run (not sure who hit it) that deflected off someone’s glove and trickled into the walkway. I darted over and lunged for it, and just as I snatched it, a 50-something-year-old man came flying out of nowhere and dove/fell at my feet. I asked if he was okay, and even though it wasn’t my fault, I apologized for the scuffle. He was totally fine and laughed it off, and as I reached out to help him up, he congratulated me for the nice grab. Later on, I ended up giving that ball to a kid.

The Brewers took the field, and I held my spot. This was my view…

…and this is where I ran to snag my 2nd ball of the day — a home run that I caught on the fly:

That one felt good, although I’m sorry to say that I don’t know who hit it.

(In the photo above, my friend Mike is standing just to the right of the arrow and wearing the orange shirt.)

Meanwhile, there wasn’t anywhere for me to go. The Crawford Boxes were more crowded than usual…

…and there wasn’t much room in right field either:

Here’s a photo of me (wearing Brewers gear) in the arch next to the Crawford Boxes:

The photo looks totally posed/staged, but it wasn’t. That’s just how I was standing there. I didn’t even know that Mike had taken this photo until we got back to his place at the end of the night.

I got one more ball during batting practice, thrown by Brewers 3rd base coach Ed Sedar from quite a distance. Here’s a photo of him that I took just after he chucked it my way:

Just before the end of BP, I headed toward the Brewers’ dugout and took a couple pics along the way. Here’s one…

…and here’s another:

Minute Maid Park is beautiful, though not the easiest place to snag baseballs.

Then I caught up with a woman named Mary and her brother Mark. They’ve been reading this blog for years, during which time she has posted countless comments under the name “marypolitan.” This was the first time I’d ever met them. Here we are:

As you can see, they’d brought their copies of my last two books — Watching Baseball Smarter and The Baseball. After I signed the books for them, Mark generously treated me to a much-needed bottle of water, and we all ended up sitting together for part of the game.

But wait!

Before the game got underway, Yuniesky Betancourt tossed me his warm-up ball after playing catch with Casey McGehee in front of the dugout. All four balls that I’d gotten from the Brewers were marked like this on the sweet spot:

Once the game got started, my plan was to stay behind the dugout until I got a third-out ball. The previous day, there was NO competition when I got one from Price Fielder after the 5th inning, but that wasn’t the case here. It was a Saturday, remember? There were a zillion little kids, and whenever there were two outs, they ran down the steps and crouched behind the dugout:

Barbara and George Bush thought it was cute…

…but I wanted no part of it. I didn’t want to compete against the kids, so I scrapped my plan and headed back to the arches in left field:

There was no action for me, but at least I got to see a great game. Wandy Rodriguez pitched eight scoreless innings, and the Astros took a 1-0 lead into the top of the 9th. Brandon Lyon entered at that point, and after retiring Ryan Braun, he surrendered a one-out bomb to Prince Fielder. I was all set for a 24-inning game, but with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, Jason Bourgeois sent everyone home (and made a winner of Lyon) with an RBI single.

Final score: Astros 2, Brewers 1.

I hurried down to the umpire tunnel on the outfield side of the 3rd base dugout. Home plate ump Derryl Cousins handed baseballs to the few kids who were there and then tossed the last one to me. Here’s a photo of the ball, taken just before I left the stadium:

On a final note, I want to give a shout-out to an 11-year-old kid named named Angel, who emailed me weeks ahead of time to let me know that he was going to attend this game and that he really wanted to meet me. We had discussed a bunch of times and places where we might be able to connect at the stadium, but it never happened. Angel, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that I looked all over for you, and I’m sorry we didn’t meet, but I really appreciated all your emails, and I hope we’ll find each other next time.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 6 balls at this game (five pictured here because I gave one away)

• 184 balls in 22 games this season = 8.36 balls per game.

• 683 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 209 consecutive games with at least two balls

• 4,846 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more.)

• 41 donors

• $6.46 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $38.76 raised at this game

• $1,188.64 raised this season

One more thing…

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the five balls I kept; the image on the lower left shows them in regular light; the image on the lower right shows them in black light:

Gotta love those invisible ink stamps.

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10 Comments

Zack – it was great to finally meet you and it was a nice surprise to get to see so much of the game with you and your friend, Mike. I really enjoyed hearing part of your thought process and plan and to see you in action. Fun stuff!

I normally don’t like to point out errors to people (imagine that) but I just thought I’d point out that in your last Houston entry you put Mike as Mike Mikes. Instead of Mike Miles. Though, double names are awesome. I wish I was named Matt Matts. How cool would that be! Other than that, GREAT entries from Texas.
-Matt

I just got Mark Teixeira to RT a link to your charity page on your website. How AWESOME is that! (Too bad I forgot the “r” in opportunity. Oh well.) Here’s the link to the proof: http://twitpic.com/4sg2ki
-Matt

I’ve always thought that Minuet Maid was an easy place to snag- apparently it’s more crowded than I thought. Just be glad a popular team like the Yankees doesn’t play there. That’d be a nightmare. Hope to see you in Toronto around Memorial Weekend.
-Jon

Zack, it was so nice to finally meet you and hang out some. Thanks for signing the books. Hope you come back sometime even though the snagging is tough here. Or maybe we’ll see you there one day in NY!

MARY-
Same here. It was great meeting you and getting to hang out for a few hours.

MATT-
Thanks, but jeez, next time you should just email me privately rather than pointing out my error for the whole world to see (in case they missed it the first time). What’s funny is that after I posted that entry, I read through it with Mike, and even HE didn’t notice the typo. Awesome stuff about the Teixiera retweet. You are amazing.

BEN-
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

JON MADDEN-
Yikes, I don’t want to imagine what this place would be like with the Yankees in town. See you in Toronto in a few weeks.

DONNY-
I can only imagine. Last night at Citi Field, all the band-wagon Giants fans showed up.

MARK-
It was my pleasure. Thanks for buying the books in the first place. Hope to make it back to Houston before TOO much time passes, but who knows? You guys’ll probably be in New York first. Keep me posted…

DREW-
The next time I get on a plane will be my Toronto trip at the end of the month.

DYLAN-
Congrats on the new blog, but I actually can’t seem to load up the page. Did you type the URL correctly? Let me know. I’d love to check it out.

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